I ask because I am working on translating some old haiku into tp. The seasons are often named there, in conjunction with other nouns. Ex. 'summer evening'. As such I want to be able to name the seasons with only two words.

Some of my ideas are:

Summer: tenpo seli (Quite unambiguous in my eyes)Autumn: tenpo jelo / tenpo loje (referring to leaves. Perhaps not so clear, but what else could it refer to?)Winter: tenpo lete (It has to be that, I think, If I use tenpo seli for summer).Spring: tenpo pi kama kasi (I'm not so sure about this. Pretty unambiguous I guess, but I don't want to use pi...).

‘tenpo seli’ for “summer” and ‘tenpo lete’ for “winter” are solidly established idioms. There are nothing so firm for ”spring” and “fall”, or even a small set of suggestions. Patterns like ‘tenpo pi kama lete’ fit with the fixed items, but there are also ‘tenpo pi kama lipu/kule/laso” for spring. And probably other things. In any case, these are going to mess with haiku, being only fit for second lines and without attachments to the other lines, a serious problem. Probably other sorts of hints, rather than direct statements of the season, are going to work better.[Actually looking at the old lists gives ‘tenpo pi lete lili’ for “fall” and the corresponding thing for “spring”, but also just ‘tenpo laso’ and the ‘kama’ version above. ‘tenpo laso la’ could do for “In spring” and fit as a first line. I’m not sure about a corresponding autumn, both loje’ and ‘jelo’ are probably too specific and “brown” and ‘gray’ are too long.]

Thank you both for these helpful replies. I gather that tenpo seli and tenpo lete are set, so no problem using those. I think that tenpo pi kama seli and tenpo pi kama lete are simple and brilliant ways to express the other two, right in the spirit of tp - as far as I know it. I'd use those in other contexts, but I think that for haiku, I need to try something a little less direct, 'hints' as janKipo suggests, in order to avoid using pi within the name of the season.

I've found that many classical haiku are pretty much impossible to render in tp without loading them with so much paraphrase that they lose the lightness and brevity that are core qualities of the genre. Some other, however, come across very nicely I find, and wonderfully reflect the essence of the original. I'll start posting some of these here shortly.

One line I've had a bit of struggle with, is aki no kure - 'evening of autumn' which, albeit simple, requires two paraphrases to be conjoined in tp. One 'solution' I've come up with for this that I like is

suno anpa pi tenpo jelo

Or is that getting too obscure? What do you think? It is the last line of the haiku. Is it grammatically in order to have such an item as a last line, grammatically unconnected to the rest? In the original, it just works as an isolated noun phrase that states, obviously, that it is an autumn evening.

The whole thing goes

kare eda ni karasu no tomarikeri aki no kure

/on a withered brancha crow has settledautumn evening

janKipo wrote:[Actually looking at the old lists gives ‘tenpo pi lete lili’ for “fall” and the corresponding thing for “spring”, but also just ‘tenpo laso’ and the ‘kama’ version above.

Or is that getting too obscure? What do you think? It is the last line of the haiku. Is it grammatically in order to have such an item as a last line, grammatically unconnected to the rest? In the original, it just works as an isolated noun phrase that states, obviously, that it is an autumn evening.

The whole thing goes

kare eda ni karasu no tomarikeri aki no kure

/on a withered brancha crow has settledautumn evening

To me, it is too obscure, since Toki Pona already is sort-of obscure or "metaphorical-ish", and adding new metaphors is risky. But maybe that's just me.

Grammatically, I think you're safe, though. For example, "mama" can be used in order to say "she's a parent" (I.e. "yes" to the question "is she a parent?"). So, you're saying "(yes,) it's autumns low sun". The usage is strange, but so is art.

Is taking it a bit to far, and possibly blurring the image. 'Low sun of the yellow time' kind of sounds like a line out of an ancient chinese poem. Which is not completely missing the mark here, but it can be done better. I don't think suno anpa is problematic. 'Low sun' is a common item in haiku, and clearly a metonynmy for evening.

Perhaps I could do with just that, and drop the autumn reference... I'm not sure. I'll try out some different ways.

This is how it looks so far:

waso pimeja li lon palisa moli

suno anpa pi tenpo jelo

A bit too long for a haiku, but that is not a big problem. That has to happen with some of them.